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You may wonder why I was able to attend BGG.con, when early this year, I had already decided that I wouldn’t/couldn’t. Well, it turned out at a fairly last minute a spot opened up for me thanks to an old friend. (Thanks JM)

So, I decided to follow the MO I’ve been using for cons lately, the one that lets you only take the days of the con off, but still get a good bit of gaming on that first day. So I took off work Thursday & Friday, and was going to get up at 2:00 to head out the Dallas, TX.

Woke up right at about 2:00, and was on the road by 2:30. It was also my first road trip with the Stang. So I was kind of stoked about that. But I’ve discovered at least on the way there, I might want some sort of Lumbar support, as the seat started hurting my back after a while.

After arriving in Dallas around 10:30, I used my phone to try to find the new hotel. After being unsuccessful until noon, I called the hotel, and figured out it was on Airport grounds. Should have paid closer attention to that before I left.

THURSDAY
First of all I want to state I had no gameplay goals for the con at all. I am more interested in socializing with old friends, than making sure I play certain games. As such, my playlist is kind of sparse.

I had intended to get in and settle for a bit, maybe take a short nap from all the driving and little sleep the night before so that I could be fresh before my first scheduled game of the con. Because of the delay finding the hotel, this was not possible, and right off the bat, ended up sitting down and teaching a game of Die Macher. If you know me at all you know I love this game. I had a little trouble teaching (Thanks to the players for being understanding) and my rules were kind of sporadic mainly due to drowsiness. I didn’t do so hot and actually ended up in third or fourth, but it was a 40 pt swing from first to fifth, and only a 4 point swing from third to fifth. I think everyone enjoyed it.

We went to dinner with most of the other werewolf crew shortly after that. We spent a lot of time socializing and talking. And when returning to the hotel, I mainly wandered around looking at the layout etc. I went back to ‘Werewolf Hollow’ and played a game there before getting up and wandering a bit more and turning a few games down because of sleepiness. I went to bed at midnight.

FRIDAY
Woke up fairly early Friday morning and decided to hit the gym for a run. Not too long, only about 3.5 miles, but enough to help me feel refreshed for my first full day at the con.

After showering and cleaning up, and heading out to find some breakfast, I came back and found some of the werewolfers also with an early start to the day. I rounded up five and managed to get them into a game of my hybrid copy of Battlestar Galactica. (I don’t like the expansions, but I do add a couple of minor things from the Pegasus expansion.

Now again, that’s not a new game, so no real thoughts on it. I enjoyed it and I think the others did too, there were a couple of new players. The game was really close and came down to the wire, and in the end, we (I was a human) ended up having to take a 50/50 die roll shot to win the game, otherwise we were going to lose to JV and KS on the next turn. Unfortunately, we lost, and conceded the game to the toasters because we had no population left.

I had to work my library shift on Friday afternoon, and so, after BSG I wandered around the dealer room a bit but couldn’t commit to any games. Went to the library at 3:00 to begin my 2hr library shift. It’s always a fun time, you get to meet new people, and have fun chatting and joking about the games people are checking in and out, and in general figure out what people are playing or are interested in.

It’s also how I found myself in my first new game of the con. After our shift someone checked in Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar Game. It was an interesting worker placement game where the board had these gears where you could place your workers and they would move on the gears to later areas. The timing was important, because you could pay money to put them close to the powerful spaces early, or you could put them on the cheap spaces, and let the gears move them to the powerful spaces, but it took longer. It was an interesting idea, and was executed very well. But in the end, still typical worker placement translated into victory points.

After the Mayan Calendar game thing, it was time to renew my bid to become BGG.con poker champion. I’ve played in this tournament every year I’ve been to BGG.con, which I just figured out is all but the first year, and last year. I have a decent track record.

• 2006 – 11th (I was the final bust out before the final table, got nothing for it)
• 2007 – Out in 1st hour (I was upset from the year before because I played for four hours and got nothing out of it, I decided to go all in or bust in 2007 to ensure I ended early.)
• 2008 – Out in 3nd hour (After a misguided idea about the poker tournament in the first two years, I decided to try my best again, I made it over halfway, but was still out sometime in the third hour)
• 2009 – Final Table (9th) (Played some pretty good poker, but was short stacked most of the tournament, rode the short stack and played smart into the Final table, but didn’t have many bullets to do anything and busted out in 9th.
• 2010 – Out in 2nd Hour (Again, decided I would play hard, but sometimes the cards don’t cooperate with you, busted out literally just before the first break.)
• 2011 – Missed BGG.con
• 2012 – Ahh, so 2012, I decided to play hard, but started on a pretty tough table where nobody played poorly and busted out and chips were tough to come by. By the time of the first break, I was on a short stack and wasn’t sure I’d make it very long after that. After the break, some people finally started busting out of our table, and bringing some fresh chips in, a couple of good hands, and a couple of good betting moves with not so good hands let me build my stack up a little bit and I worked my stack hard trying to make good decisions as the field dwindled to about 20. I had about 17,000 chips when I got an AJ and put in a bet of 3k (with 500, 1k blinds), and got one caller behind me going to the flop, The flop dropped KK2 and I pushed and was Instacalled, which I knew meant I was doomed as the caller had KQ. I had him covered though and survived with about 7k in chips. I built that 7k back up to about 20k carefully and slowly and with one double up (I pushed with AT caller behind had A4, and my hand held) and rode a short stack into the final table. I played conservatively on the final table, but was short stacked and waited for cards, got an AT and pushed, but was up against a caller with AA which spelled my final doom. I finished in 7th. I got another set of Copag cards just like I got in 2009.

I ended Friday with a game of werewolf before going to bed, as it was around 1:30 when I busted out of poker anyway.

SATURDAY
I woke up early Saturday morning as I had scheduled to be a seller in the Flea Market. I found a table spot and managed to move almost all of the stuff I had brought. I held my self though and didn’t really pick up anything except one I had kind of been looking for.

Surburbia was interesting, but I was kind of zonked out, and we were in the darkest corner of the hot games room. I zoned out a bit during the rules explanation, but it seemed fairly straightforward. It is a tile ‘auction’ type game where you are building a city competing with the others on the table a la ‘Simcity’ computer game. But it’s not really solitaire, because you have these goals you are working towards and things your opponent places in his city can affect the income and reputation levels of your city. It was interesting, but I’m not sure if I liked it or not, thinking back, I think I did. I definitely liked it better than the Mayan calendar thing.

After Suburbia, I took about 5 hours to go up to the room and relax a bit and watch the Ole Miss vs LSU game. This isn’t a football blog post, but the Rebels almost pulled off an amazing upset. Two bad turnovers and a horrible breakdown in punt coverage sealed their fate though.

After the game I went down to the werewolf rooms where some friends were setting up A Game of Thrones, it had been years since I played the game, and they said they were going to learn and had someone coming to teach them and needed a fifth, so I joined. When their teacher came, I recognized him as someone I had played with in 2007 when he ran over the whole board with his army which he called the ’8th Panzer Division’ I was Tyrell, with my AM and RK playing Lannister and Greyjoy respectively. The 8th panzer guy was Stark, and his friend was Baratheon. My play started out being biased against Stark for the first part of the game, although trying to set up a truce line with Baratheon didn’t gain any traction and I was chased from my starting area and down to a hurt level early. After that I used my limited resources to work with my werewolf friends in any way to ensure that one of them would win rather than the person that pushed me to the edge of defeat. In the end Lannister one in Turn 6 with 7 castles.

I ended Saturday playing several games of werewolf and a couple of games of Telestrations, before heading to bed at around 4:00.

SUNDAY
I didn’t intend to do much Sunday, I woke up and packed and was going to head out fairly early, but wanted to pick something up in the Dealer room before I left. It didn’t open till 10 so I hung out until around that time and went in.

While making a last swing, I decided to sit down and try Escape: The Curse of the Temple as I heard it was very fun and only took 10 minutes to play. After a brief rules explanation, we gave it a shot, and sure enough, I had a good time playing it. It’s very light, and very luck based with only a few decisions, but it’s frantic, played by everyone simultaneously, and requires pretty good teamwork to overcome the games obstacles. I’m not sure if the game has any lasting power, but I was entertained in my one game of it.

After that I headed out, and headed home.

Then I went to bed.

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Chris

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG.con, Boardgames, Convention, Dallas TX

I came home from work and my favorite board game from BGG.con 2009 and 2010, was on my doorstep.

It’s been impossible for me to get a copy, but I finally managed to secure one!

Battling Tops now officially resides on my shelf! It’s missing one puller though, so the epic 4 player battles will have to wait ’til I can find another one for parts.

written by Chris \\ tags: Battling Tops, BGG.con, Boardgames

So, in accordance with the popular activity among the board gaming crowd, I hereby present to you my Five & Dime list for 2010.

One word of warning, they kinda suck. Apparently I spent the bulk of 2010 playing new games, or light games, and not playing nearly as many as I usually do. I went through a pretty serious funk from around March to about November or so. I don’t think I bought more than two games in all that time, I didn’t play many.

Our local game group kind of stagnated at some point during the year. Besides a couple of events I attended I didn’t play very many ‘gamery’ type games during the year at all.

To be honest, at some of those gaming events, I spent a whole lot more time socializing and visiting with friends than I did playing games.

All of this is in an effort to make me feel better about my five & dime list that I’m about to present, because you’re not going to believe how bad it is.

Well anyway here goes.

My 2010 Board Game Five & Dime List!

Crokinole – 12 plays – I’m guessing a good portion of that was my visit with friends for a football game in September along with entry into the Crokinole Tournament at Tennessee Game Days. I love this game though. It’s a great game, even if I quit playing boardgames altogether I’m pretty sure I would still hang on to this.

Werewolf – 11 plays – A good portion of this was likely at BGG.con, there might have been a game or two of it played at Midsouth Con as well, but I don’t remember and don’t care enough to look up dates. I really like Werewolf. If the fact that you needed 9 players to really play it wasn’t a concern, it would probably get played a lot more. I can’t wait till I get my copy of the Resistance. Going to love getting that one in. I predict that will be on this list in some form or fashion next year.

Scrabble – 10 plays – Haha, This is sort of a fudge I think. I don’t log all my plays of it, but occasionally I do log a couple of plays of Words with Friends as plays of Scrabble. I play Words with Friends a lot. I have about 5 friends that we are constantly rematching with. My friends are very good at the game, (or else were all equally bad at it) because most of the times our games are extremely competitive. At least one of these plays was played scrabble on an iPad using the iPhones as tile racks. That is so cool.

Small World – 10 plays – This is another half and half type of number. Half of these plays were played on the board, but I’m guessing a few of these were played on the iPad as a two player game as well. I don’t log plays against AI’s which I do often, but against an opponent I most certainly do, if I think about it. There are times my daughter and I have played this that I didn’t log it, and forgot about the play shortly after, I’d say we’ve played closer to 30 games of this over the past year.

King’s Breakfast – 5 plays – I love this light fluffy game, it’s quick, and easy to teach, yet gives many interesting decisions. Every once in a while, I’ll bring it out and it’ll get a couple of plays, but often I forget it’s on the shelf.

Tichu – 5 plays – Three of these plays were at the BGG.con Tichu Tournament. All very competitive games that we played. I can’t remember where the other two occurred, but I imagine it was here and there. I love Tichu as well, one of my favorite ‘trick taking card games’

And, that’s it. There you have it. That’s all I got. I told you it was sad!!!

For the curious, here are my other plays above 1 for the year 2010. Last year, I didn’t talk about these games or list them at all because I wanted to respect the Five & Dime Format. This year, I’ve decided that I have to list these, otherwise, I won’t have any Geek Cred. At least some of the stuff on this list will go a long way toward reestablishing a smidge of that Cred.

The Adventurers 4
Hacienda 4
Löwenherz 4
Neuroshima Hex! 4
Pandemic 4
The Resistance 4
Telestrations 4
Bananagrams 3
Battlestar Galactica 3
Ca$h ‘n Gun$ 3
Carcassonne 3
Dungeon Lords 3
Go 3
Hive 3
Loot 3
M 3
Ninja versus Ninja 3
Poker 3
Race for the Galaxy 3
Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age 3
Zendo 3
10 Days in the USA 2
Battling Gladiators 2
Chaos in the Old World 2
Cosmic Encounter 2
Traumfabrik 2
Eat Poop You Cat 2
Goa 2
El Grande 2
In the Year of the Dragon 2
Liar’s Dice 2
Liberté 2
Lord of the Rings 2
Manila 2
No Thanks! 2
Polarity 2
The Princes of Florence 2
Railways of the World: The Card Game 2
San Juan 2
Schrille Stille 2
Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit 2
Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization 2
Trendy 2
Word on the Street 2

I won’t list the 1 plays as that would be really, really, really, long. If you’re interested in that, click here!

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG.con, Boardgames, iPad, iPhone, MidsouthCon, Pictures, Play Statistics

I hit a home run at BGG.con this year during the flea market. I actually can’t remember everything that I took, but it was two tubs full, I came back with only about 4 games that I wanted to sell. (Sure there were a couple of things I let go at prices I really would rather have kept them at. But still…) Anyway, I was curious about the effect that this had on my collection numbers. And it’s been a while since I looked so…

So, let me see, according to BoardgameGeek I’ve got: 243 games as of right now. Umm, that is of course, after I just received a game order today. In my defense, it was mostly to get some Secret Santa stuff. The bulk of the game order was for Secret Santa, but I couldn’t help throwing in a couple of things for me, I ended up getting a copy of Nanuk, Prolix, and 10 Days in the USA.

The only other incoming games since the last time I made a Game Collection Blog Post were the purchases from BGG.con. Which was limited only to Railways of the World: The Card Game, and Fzzzt. Along with my BGG.con door prizes Architekton, The BoardgameGeek Game, and Homesteaders. I had sorta wanted to purchase a couple of things in the Flea Market, but was thwarted by KF. I also showed great GREAT restraint in not purchasing the Warrior Knights Game and Expansion at the Fantasy Flight Games Holiday Sale. I was very VERY very tempted.

I’m pretty sure that I’ll pick up The Resistance when it’s available. There’s also a very good chance I might pick up a copy of 7 Wonders as well.

There are about 10 on my shelf right now that will probably be sloughed off during the next year, they are just waiting for me to vote them up or down one way or the other based on where I want my game collection to head.

I’m happy with the numbers as of right now, there’s still some play there before the end of the year, but I don’t see a whole lot more changing over the next month. Christmas is a wild card though. I don’t know what my Secret Santa got for me, but I’ll get it in a couple of days (Already received advanced notification that the elves are en route.)

Of course, officially I won’t compare this number with the previous years until December is finished. But I like the look of it so far.

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG.con, Boardgames, Game Collection, Purge

I have returned home from BGG.con this year. So far so good. I’m feeling a little depressed. I had a great time there, and if I follow my plan, I won’t be back there next year.

This will be kinda a long post, so if you’re not interested in boardgames, I’d suggest not reading it.

Anyway, here’s the Wrap Up on what I did and what I thought.

WEDNESDAY
After getting up at an insane early hour (2am) I showered and headed to KF’s house to pick him up. We were on the road toward Dallas before 2:40. I was hoping that this would put us at the Con before too long in the day. We arrived at the Con Hotel around 10:30 and registered promptly.

Immediately after Registering, I walked around looking for a little bit before finally walking into the Hot Games Room and toward K2. This was the only Essen game that I was interested in trying, and it happened to be open. I sat down got a quick rules explanation from a neighboring player, and played. It was an enjoyable game. We played easy Mountain in the Milder weather, so our 4 player game had a lot of blocking and tent pitching at the top of the mountain. It made for a tight end game as people couldn’t get the movement points together to make a summit trek and get back down because of all the people stuck on top of the mountain. It was an enjoyable game. I loved the theme, I need a game like this, but I’m not sure I could get it. And I won’t pay the Import prices for this one. Maybe in a couple of years, it’ll be readily available, or the kind of thing that people want to trade away.

Then KF and I picked up some lunch and signed up into the various tournaments we intended to play in. My agenda for the Con included Poker, Tichu, and Battling Tops.

GA wanted someone to teach him Hacienda, since our game group loves the game, We volunteered and checked it out of the library and ran through the game.

The same group then went into the library and grabbed the game Isla Dorada. I’d not heard about this one, I assume this is an Essen game too. It was quite enjoyable, a lot of take that in the game in bidding which way our expedition goes on the island. Totally had fun with this one, I don’t know how much it will hold up to repeated playings, and you probably need to be in the right group to enjoy this one, but I’ll never forget all the Makak jokes.

After Dinner, we had a few minutes to play something before we had to start the Beginner Werewolf sessions we had scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday Night. Since there were three of us, I taught Flaschenteufel (The Bottle Imp) to some friends. I really enjoy this game, and it’s a great three player game as well. I believe it was enjoyed by all.

Then we started up the Werewolf for the evening. As they were beginner sessions, We were only around to fill up games if there were not enough new players. I used much of this time to wander, greeting old and new friends. I ended up playing a game of Werewolf before turning in fairly early (12ish).

THURSDAY
I awoke early Thursday and used the hotel treadmill to run, it looked like it was cold outside, and I only brought one set of tights, plus had a longer run scheduled on Saturday, so I stayed in to do the boring treadmill run on the short day. Ran about 3 miles or so. Went down cleaned up and began Day 2 of the Con.

KF and I wandered the Main Hallway for a couple of minutes before some friendly gamers invited us into a game of Peloponnes. It was an interesting light civ type game. Bidding on building tiles to put them in your tableau. It was fun, but I don’t think it’s anything earth shattering. I’d play it again if asked, but I don’t think it’s worth seeking out and finding.

Thursday was the day of the Tichu Tournament. So After eating Lunch, there wasn’t much time before that Tournament began. Since we were in the Battling Tops Tournament a little later, I checked out a copy of Battling Gladiators, and “taught” it to KF. We played a game or two of it, and put it away getting ready for Tichu.

Tichu Tournament started as a round robin in groups “World Cup Style” I was in the I group. JM and I started off the first game played a really close game, but came up a hair short. Second game was a tight game, quite an epic game, but JM and I managed to squeak out a win (Making us 1-1) 1070-1030. This set up what would become a critical game against SK and MP. (Which also drew a little bit of an audience from those players interested.)

We played another solid game against SK and MP. There was some back and forth, but we were on the losing end most of the time. It was known to us that the results of our game could mean the difference in any of three different teams out of our group proceeding to the round of 16. And we played a hard fought battle. Circumstances of the tournament required that if JM and I wanted to advance, we had to win by a pretty good sized margin. So about halfway through the game, we had to start calling some Grand Tichus to try to bump score. We maybe made a couple of those, but we lost a couple too, and ended up losing a fairly close game something like 1000 to 800 or so, allowing SK and MP to advance out of our group.

Because we played some tight Tichu Games, it meant that we were very late for the Werewolf Dinner at Hard Eight. KF, JM and I decided we would go to Hard Eight ourselves and did. After eating there for a few minutes, some of the werewolfers came in to greet us, turned out they had waited for us at the restaurant after all, but we didn’t realize that. Sorry guys! Had a lot of fun visiting and ate a lot of meat.

Returning to the Con, JM grabbed Mines of Zavendor out of the Library and we began playing it. It was an okay game, nothing special, but I didn’t hate the game.

After this, it was again time for the Beginner Werewolf sessions, and we all went. I stuck around a bit and played 3 or 4 games before heading up to bed (2ish) I had another unofficial event I was going to attend early on Friday.

FRIDAY

Friday began with me getting up early again to go play Disc Golf with some BGGers. I’m still very much a beginner, but I had a great time, met some good people, and played a nice course. Can’t wait to do that again.

Got back from Disc Golf at about 11:30 to clean up and head down to the convention area again.

A couple of times up to this point, I had been by the Eagle Games/Gryphon Games booth looking at Railways of the World: The Card Game. I am intrigued by the game, and wanted to give it a shot before deciding whether or not to purchase it. At this time, it was not possible though, so KF and I sat down with SB and MP to try out a Richard Borg Trick Taking Game Prototype that I don’t know the rules on whether or not I can talk about, so I’ll just refrain from saying anything at all.

After this I was then able to try Railways of the World: The Card Game. I very much liked it, It’s a light card game, but it has some interesting decisions, a step up from Ticket to Ride and a natural stepping stone into Pickup and Deliver Railway games if you need that sort of thing. I liked it enough that I picked it up. I also picked up Fzzzt from them as well, as I got them both for a pretty good deal along with the 5/6 player Fzzzt expansion and I’ve heard a lot of good things about Fzzzt.

I walked away from the Eagle Games Area and around the Con area when I ran into VW and MW. They saw Railways of the World: The Card Game under my arm and wanted to try it, so I taught it to them and we ran through it once. Another player joined us (Unknown last name, first initial was C) and we played a really tight game. It was solid, and made me happy with my purchase.

After this, We picked up a couple more players and began playing Dominant Species. GP had said that his group was loving it, and that he would be happy to teach us. Since we were at the table next to him, we secured his assistance and went to town.

Dominant Species is a long game of different Animal Kingdoms vying for domination on earth. The rules explanation took a good bit of time, but we finally got through and started. I played the Insects, I was good at adapting, and living everywhere, but gaining dominance over those areas was not something that was easy for me to do, so I concentrated on being second or third in many areas that other people were scoring. It is a very interesting game. A lot of complexity in the interaction of the different species and what they can and can’t do in the different areas of the earth. I very much enjoyed the game, except for the keeping track of which animal types were dominant in different areas. This seemed tedious and did take away some of my enjoyment of the game. Over time that might become second nature to someone. But it deterred my enjoyment of the game slightly. Other than that and the length of the game, I thought it was quite enjoyable.

We did have an artificial end though, as we needed to go to the Poker Tournament at 8, and I kinda needed to have some dinner before that too. So we removed several of the cards from the gene pool deck and tried to get to the Ice Age a little earlier. I think we finally picked the game up about 7:45 or so, unfortunately not quite enough time to get anything for Dinner before the Poker Tournament. Thank Goodness KF ran up to the room and grabbed some Beef Jerky and Granola Bars for me to eat while waiting in line for Poker.

We began the Poker Tournament Promptly at 8pm. I had done well in previous years, and wanted to do so again this year. I played tight most of the time and caught cold cards. In the hour and 50 minutes or so that I was there the best hand I saw was A-T of diamonds. I managed to squeak out a couple of nice pots on some medium hands, but in the end, I saw an A-Q suited and was short stacked and put it all in. I didn’t have much pull, and was called with a 3-5 of diamonds in a three way pot. The 3-5 of diamonds managed to river a flush and knock me out a couple of minutes before the first break.

After Poker, I headed to the Werewolf Area for a couple of games of Werewolf before turning in around 3.

SATURDAY
Saturday Morning I woke up early to run. Today was my long run day, as I intended to try to get in Six miles. I noted that it was pretty warm out, so put on a pair of shorts and shirt and headed out of the hotel down the sidewalk. Unfortunately, it was a strange area, and every mile or so, I’d head down a road, only to have it end in an Interstate which I can’t run on, or a dead end. There were also several large streets I had to cross waiting on the Signal. In the end, this coupled with being in a strange city slowed me way down and I only ended up going about 5.5 miles in about an hour. I couldn’t really stay much longer as the flea market was soon and I really had a lot I wanted to sell. So I settled for that and went up to clean up and get ready for it.

Unfortunately, I took a couple of small glasses of water in, and jumped in the shower and stretched a little bit. Cleaned up and started packing up my games to sell in the flea market.

Got down to Sunnyside about 9am and set up. I had a very specific goal this year. Sell my games, and don’t come back with anything unless it’s life altering. I looked around the flea market and was really only interested in a couple of other things. In the Year of the Dragon for $20, and another copy of Cities for $15 (for eight player games). There was a copy of Hansa Teutonica in shrink for $30 on the table next to me too which I was slightly interested in but was talking myself out of, and I was also quite interested in a copy of Montreal Metro map for Age of Steam and likely would have bought it on the spot, but I needed to save my cash for change when the flea market started.

Flea Market started and I did really well, selling nearly everything. There were a couple of hard ones though. Losing Steel Driver for only $50 hurt a little bit, as well as Losing Amun-Re for only $20. Everything else I was okay with. While I was selling though, KF ran off and came back with both Cities and In the Year of the Dragon. Both games that I would probably have purchased. Oh well, at least their in my group. I raced over to MH’s booth to get the Montreal Metro map for Age of Steam, but alas, it was gone, and I was blanked in the flea market. Technically I did pick up a nice drawsting bag from the table next to me. I’m not sure what game to use it in yet, but I wanted it.

Unfortunately, Because of the Run, and the Flea Market, I was feeling quite dehydrated at this point, and starting to stiffen up. This meant that I had to break my Denny’s fast when the flea market was done and KF and I went over for breakfast. It was just what my body needed though and I started to feel much better after drinking about 4 glasses of water and having some hashbrowns and eggs.

We didn’t have a whole lot of time for other games in between Denny’s and the Ole Miss/LSU Game which KF and I wanted to watch. We also had the Battling Tops Tournament at 4pm we had to go too.

I walked around the Main Hall a bit and saw GH, he has a new game out called Prolix. He ran through a quick rules explanation and I really liked what I saw. I think I’ll pick a copy up when I make my Secret Santa order. I think my family and my sister will like it. I’ll take one when I visit her at Christmas. If she likes it, it’ll make a nice ‘oops, I left a game at your house’ type gift to her.

At this point KF and I went to a sports bar in Dallas to watch a bit of the Ole Miss/LSU Game. It was a great bar, with $2.50 all day Saturday drafts of any of their beers. So drinking Guiness for $2.50 was pretty sweet. We only got to watch about half of the game or so before KF and I had to head back to play in the Battling Tops Tournament.

And so it began. I walked in (Fresh off the $2.50 draft guinesses) into the Battling Tops Arena, ready for action! I drew the Rabid Ralph Top and proceeded to play a few practice matches to warm up, waiting for the official start.

Rabid Ralph did pretty good in the Practice Matches, but the start of the actual game he choked and another player swept us 3-0-0-0 to advance. There was a second player that also go to advance to the Losers bracket though, so we continued on. This is where Rabid Ralph began to shine. Winning 2 in a row to make the score 2-0-0. Unfortunately, Rabid Ralph couldn’t handle the spotlight and lost the next four making the score 2-2-2 with the next winner advancing. Unfortunately this was not Ralph, and my Tournament dreams were shattered.

I was chatting with users about my wares when a discussion of My copies of Race for the Galaxy and the expansions being for sale. MK had told me at the Flea Market that if I like Glory to Rome so much, (Which was why I got rid of both of my copies and expansions of Race for the Galaxy in the flea market) that I needed to go to the Tasty Minstrel booth and try Eminent Domain. After Battling Tops, this is what KF and I did. Another person joined us as well, and I rather enjoyed playing this game. Technically it’s a prototype as it is not out yet. But it was very good and I enjoyed it. I might pick it up after it comes out and I see the Production Quality and how it holds up over repeated play. Thanks for the recommendation MK!!!

After this, some Werewolf Friends grabbed us and took us into a quiet room to try a new quick board game type werewolf implementation called The Resistance. In short, I think I LOVED this game. It was very fun, and a very good bluff type game. There may be some problems with game balance or something (possibly caused by the addition of some expansion ‘plot’ cards) but it was still a very fun game and will most definitely be a purchase for me very soon. We played 4 games in a row with different numbers of players to see some of the nuances. Every one of them was quite enjoyable.

Most of the players including KF and I then headed out to find some dinner at the Hotel Restaurant and chat for a bit at this point before finally returning to the convention space.

It was at this point that we could no longer fight off not trying 7 Wonders. I wasn’t really interested in the game, but everyone kept saying we needed to try it. A lot of people I respect were saying it. So I headed over to see if we could get in a game. As it turns out, one was finishing up and we did. I liked the game a whole bunch. It’s very fast, light, streamlined, easy to teach, has good decisions. I think it’ll be a winner. I hope to pick up a copy soon.

I headed over to the Werewolf Area and played another last couple of games at this time before turning in around 3ish, effectively ending my con.

SUNDAY
I woke up fairly early and headed down to the convention space, wanted to see if the vendors were opened or anyone was playing anything and I might get a quick game before heading home. But alas, the main hall was dead with only one or two tables being used. I walked around and found some Werewolf friends playing Battlestar Galactica in the lobby, they had been playing all night and I sat around chatting with them while they played. After they finished I joined them at *sigh* Denny’s for Breakfast, before returning to the Hotel, packing the car, and heading home.

I managed to take a few pictures, and scavenged some from the Internet as well, My album is located if you click the picture below:

Bye Bye BGG.con I will miss you!

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG.con, Boardgames, Dallas TX, Football, Ole Miss, poker, Tichu